The Self Restraint of Kevin Levin
by Karkadinn
Summary: Kevin is a jerk. That's no big secret. Just how MUCH of a jerk... that is something he tries to keep to himself. And maybe even a jerk can have good reasons to keep secrets.


The Self-Restraint of Kevin Levin

Today, Kevin congratulated himself for not killing a puppy.

He was totally aware that this wasn't something a normal person would be congratulating themselves for, but then, he was way above normal, wasn't he? He was Kevin freaking Levin, ex-cobblepatched monster, ex-criminal, current superhero. Sure, he lacked the spandex, but had Ghost Rider had spandex? Noooo. Kevin thought of himself as a Ghost Rider. Or maybe a Wolverine, if Wolverine hadn't had such inexcusably freaking bad hair. The poor SOB probably had to turn his head just to walk through doorways. He was way better than those comic book bozos. He was the real deal. And maybe he wasn't acting out of pure righteous goody-goodiness like Ben or Gwen, but if his motives were less than pure, that only made him more real and therefore better, in his opinion.

Changing on the inside, he'd learned long ago, wasn't that important. People only cared about the part of you they could see, the part that was actually talking and walking around and doing stuff. That was the only part they could judge. So, as a matter of survival, he learned to 'play nice' at an early age. The first time he'd met Ben was a pretty good case of that. He'd played nice with the sap until there was something he wanted more than Ben's friendship, and then the act dropped and the real Kevin showed up. That stupid watch had screwed up so much of _his_ life and Ben only thought of it as a cool tool for playing pranks and helping people out! It still infuriated Kevin sometimes, when he brooded alone, glaring underneath his car's hood or at the ceiling. The Omnitrix had messed everything up, changed everything. Forced Kevin to change. He didn't like being forced into things.

He'd played nice with Ben again later on, once it became clear that pounding the kid into the dirt was way more trouble than it was worth. Whoever thought a simple, careless little punk like that could be so hard to squash? Like a roach. They both grew up some, and Ben stopped being so careless, but he stayed simple and he stayed hard to squash. It was totally ridiculous, how many people wanted the little guy dead and it just didn't happen.

It had _started_ as playing nice, anyway. As a private joke. Sort of a 'Well, why the hell don't I see what this friendship bullshit is all about for a change, since I'm not having luck being a bad guy?' deal. The fact that he'd failed enough to make even that a not instantly rejected option was kinda disgusting. And then Gwen entered the picture, the chick he'd barely paid any attention to back in the old days, and things got even weirder. Somehow it stopped being just a joke or way to pass the time. That whole disgusting 'team comradeship' vibe he kept getting from Ben actually started to make a kind of sense. He wanted to know what it was like, to be close to someone like Ben and Gwen were. To be so goddamn close that you actually took it for granted that they'd always be there. It was so pathetically obvious that they couldn't even really get their brains to wrap around the concept of not talking to each other all the time like old pals that it pissed him off. He was jealous, sure, he admitted it. It wasn't like they were screwing or anything... as far as he knew, anyway. But they were still a damn lot closer than any brother and sister he ever knew, and they just acted like it was normal.

So at some point he decided to really dive into the thing and give it a try, heart and soul. If he had a heart. Or a soul. He wasn't really sure on all that crap. He didn't quite care enough to change everything about who he was, but he cared enough to take little babysteps and see what happened. Fighting with the good guys wasn't much different from fighting on the side of self-interest, anyway. The main difference was he actually had backup in a fight, which was awesome. That backup came with the price of said backup expecting him to get all touchy-feely and crap, which was a whole lot less awesome, but he humored them as much as he could stand to. Give a little, take a little. He wasn't going to be a whole different person, but he knew he had to change some, and he did.

Which was why he hadn't kicked that annoying goddam puppy to death this morning. Waking him up with its stupid yapping for the third time this week. The thing's owner should get a punch in the mouth for not training the thing to shut the hell up. It would've taken all of twenty seconds for Kevin to run over there and kill it, even not bothering with any powers, but he was a good boy. Good boys didn't do things like that, did they? Even if they allowed themselves to fantasize about it in slow, detailed luxury while frying an egg for breakfast. He could just kick it until its bottom jaw fell off and it gurgled and choked on its blood, and then go back to bed and sleep in properly. He might have to move afterwards, if the owner got all suspicious, but he moved a lot anyway, so that was no big deal. To feel that powerful again, to watch the life leaking out of something and know that he did that, that would be great. Ben and Gwen didn't understand. They'd never lived a life where it seemed like everything was gonna eat you if you didn't eat it first. Lucky kids, they'd _never_ understand, and a part of him was real glad about that, just as glad as another part of him was sad and lonely, and a third part was jealous and bitter.

There were plenty of people he'd never lost contact with that his new friends wouldn't have approved of much. People who were desperate enough to do anything, people who treated human (and alien) lives like pieces on a chessboard, people who were even scarier than Kevin himself. But he put those contacts to work 'for the good,' when he could do it, and so they didn't put up too much of a fuss over it. And on the side, when he thought the old crowd could still do something for him personally, he put 'em to work for that, too. It was dangerous. Some people might've even said pointlessly risky. But that was the fun of it, to Kevin. He'd go crazy if he just lived a regular healthy life like the Tennyson bunch did. He'd snap one day and go out on a shooting spree just to get all the grit and negativity out of his system. And he didn't want that.

Not yet.

Maybe, maybe, not _ever_, but that was still up in the air, like so many things.

He met with one of those old contacts after breakfast, for two reasons. Like the two heads of a coin, one good reason, one bad reason. Even the 'good' reason was kinda self-serving; after Kevin had hooked them all up with the Knights and the Knights had proceeded to go wacko, he'd taken a lot of flack for it. They weren't gonna trust his ideas if they all went that sour, and he did kinda want to corrupt them a bit, at least as much as they would _let_ themselves be... which wasn't flippin' much! He had to get their trust, even if he knew better than them that he didn't really deserve it, so he wanted to make up for that last little... miscalculation. The contact, Sminklestein, was just a regular human guy as far as Kevin had ever been able to deal, but ol' Sminks had his ears to the ground a lot of the time and could tell when things were happening in important secret societies like the Knights. He wanted to see if Sminklestein had a feel on the Knights' current movements and plans, to see if they'd be causing any more trouble. And that was the good thing, the heads of the coin.

The tails side was a bit of a prickly deal. Kevin owed Sminklestein, for some past similar little informational tidbits, and would possibly owe the guy more if there was anything Knights-related blipping on the radar. Sminklestein didn't usually ask for money. Sminklestein's business was dangerous, and the guy himself wasn't much of a fighter. Made a lot of enemies, and usually got other, more muscularly-endowed people to take care of those enemies in exchange for some of his cheaper wares. It was a pretty fair trade, and Kevin felt comfortable with going through with it again. Only this time, he couldn't be quite as... thorough... as he used to be, all those other times. These days he didn't do anything he knew the Tennysons wouldn't forgive him for once they found out. For all he knew, Ben's Omnitrix had a mind-reader stuffed in there, after all! And he wasn't ready to go back to being enemies. If they were going to be enemies again, it would be _his_ decision, not theirs, and for that to be he had to set himself some limits.

Limits like not knocking out a random streetwalker's teeth.

"Oh, come now, I have a crowbar ready and everything," Sminklestein said with some exasperation. "You won't even have to use those powers and toss an extra line onto your gorgeously lengthy criminal record, if you don't want to. I understand you've, aheh, 'changed,' but I think I'm being perfectly reasonable here. It's not like I'm asking you to kill her."

"I don't care _who_ she's tattlin' on you to, I'm not doin' anything she can't get fixed after stayin' at a hospital," Kevin insisted stubbornly.

Sminklestein sighed and rubbed his nose, and then came the bargaining. The bargaining was famliiar to Kevin, except normally it was over things like levels of info he could afford, or how much money knowing something was worth. It was kinda funny to haggle over exactly how much hurting someone would constitute an old debt covered over.

"Kneecaps?" he suggests, almost with an embarrassed air. "Well, it _is_ traditional in some circles..."

"No, man. You know she might not walk again if it heals up bad." Kevin snorted. "And it's a fuckin' cliche. Do I look like a cliche kinda guy to you?"

"Of course not, of course not. Perhaps... just a _little_ drowning."

Kevin raised both eyebrows. "Define a little."

"Enough to scare her into keeping quiet."

Thinking it over, Kevin decided he could do that. More or less. "Yeah, okay, I'll roll with that. Just a little drowning. Not a lot." He smirked and shook Sminklestein's hand, and as usual, they both left their prearranged meeting place each certain that they'd gotten the best end of the deal.

He didn't really drown the poor dumb whore, of course. Not the way Sminklestein expected. Instead, what he did was drag her to the back of an alley and then slam her up against a wall all threatening-like to have a chat.

"I dunno where a hooker got the balls to report with Sminklestein," he told her flatly, mildly disgusted by the clown-like thickness of the makeup she had on, "but you better wise up. There's some rats you can set traps but this ain't one of 'em. This rat's rabid, you get me? Sminks has a lot of friends, and I'm the nicest one, so you're pretty fucking lucky today. Anyone else and you'd be up shit creek, but I'm gonna play nice. You know how to play nice?"

Against some people, she might have fought. Might have scratched with those extra-long nails of hers, or peppersprayed him, or something. She looked like the type to have some fight in her. But she knew who he was, and she knew he could break her like a twig if he felt like it. So she just nodded, looking all scared. "Y-yeah, I know how to play nice. I'll play nice, I promise."

"You better. There's enough dead hoes in the world without you jumpin' on the pile like it's a fuckin' mosh pit. I don't give a damn who you're talking to about Sminks, I don't care if they bribed you or threatened you or what, but you stop talking about Sminks now. Run outta town if that's the only way you think you can do it, but you do it, or the next time Sminks'll send someone a lot worse than me. He wanted me to take out all your fuckin' teeth, bitch, but I talked him down. Just think about what he'll expect the _next_ time, if this shit keeps goin' on."

She swallowed, a single perfect tear trembling on one long eyelash before cutting a swathe through the makeup caking her cheek. "No one'll hear nothin' from me."

"Great." He let her go and relaxed, starting to stride off. "And if anyone asks about what you and me," he added idly, "you tell 'em I held your damn head underwater till you almost died. You say otherwise, and I'll come back and do it for real. Only I might forget to let you back up outta the water." The funny thing about it was that he honestly didn't know if that last part was true or not. But what he did know was that he needed to scare the hell out of her to make sure she behaved and didn't screw either of them up. She looked scared enough, that was good.

The only big thing on his schedule accomplished for the day, he went for a relaxing drive around the city, swearing at the prices every time he went past a gas station but otherwise enjoying himself.

It wasn't that he was a total psycho. He saw the movies with the Lecters and Jigsaw guys and all that. He wasn't like them, he knew what it was like to have a conscience, to feel bad about doing something that hurt other people. He had the little voice in his head and everything, just like everybody else. It was just that he'd gotten real good at ignoring it while he'd been young, and since then ignoring it had just turned into a kind of habit. At first it had been out of necessity for surviving, then convenience and a desire to be top predator on the food chain, and eventually out of desire for revenge, protecting his pride, and a little bit of pure delighted sadism. There was nothing else that really felt like being a bastard for its own sake. It was like giving the middle finger to the entire universe, like telling that dumbass God who'd never done him any favors, 'Hey you! FUCK YOU!'

He knew what it was like to not care, or to pretend you didn't just so you'd enjoy yourself a little more. But he was also starting to know what it was like to care, and to let yourself care without running away from it like it was another kind of enemy, and that was, in its own way, starting to get... if not quite so exciting... at least, sorta comforting. It was a learning experience and he wasn't gonna flunk out just yet.

On an impulse, like a lot of things he did (but not nearly as many as Ben or Gwen would've thought), he went to say hi to Gwen after he was all drived out. He wasn't really good at that sickeningly comfortable, 'We've been around each other for half a decade and even the parts when we were fighting were kinda fun' conversation that Ben did with her, so he had to fumble for some random excuse about why he came over, but she didn't seem to mind. They talked about meaningless crap instead of aliens and robots and secret societies for a change, and it was nice. _She_ was nice. And for some reason it didn't sicken him. He never could figure out why he could stand her. Any of the Tennysons, really, they were all just as bad, even the clueless parents. Happy families made him want to puke.

Okay, more than just stand her, really.

There was no possible way he could admit to her face that he thought she was hot and intelligent and a lot of other positive adjectives that made him want to kiss her and forget he'd ever been a monster. But Kevin was smarter than that. He knew himself better than that. He might forget for a little while, but if things went sour, who was to say he wouldn't lose control and do something he'd end up regretting later? He wasn't ready to play for stakes that high yet. No way. That was the one thing in the way. The other thing was that he nurtured inside himself a quiet, grim, spiteful hatred of the Omnitrix and how that dinky alien watch had changed his whole life without his say so. Even before then he'd been devoted to having control over his own life, because no one else gave a damn about it after all. Afterwards it became almost an obsession. No matter how hard he pounded away at Ben 10, the damn kid just wouldn't go down. And every failure was like the Omnitrix laughing at him. He didn't so much hate Ben, there was too much of the adrenaline junkie in common between them for fervent hate to take root, but he definitely hated the Omnitrix. If only the watch had let _him_ wear it instead. But no. He wasn't gonna let anyone push anything on him ever again. Even if he _wanted_ it. So to hell with Gwen, she could damn well wait for him to ask her out when he _felt_ like it. When his pride didn't sting quite so bad, and when he was ready to really dive in to the whole 'being normal' bullshit for strike it rich or lose the whole pile.

He did want to kiss her, though.

Definitely not kill her or hurt her in any way.

Well. Maybe choke her, just a little, when she was being super-snarky. Or maybe do something with ropes and handcuffs. Yeah, something brutal and perverted, only, she'd get to _like_ it, and be his little slut when Ben wasn't looking. And then he'd be in control. Total control. The concept of that alone was almost deliriously sexual to Kevin, but he never whispered of it to her, never gave a hint, and never ever seriously thought about doing it for real.

Although his thoughts had fooled him before. He couldn't always tell between his serious thoughts and his not serious ones. But that one wasn't serious. It couldn't be. Ben would fucking _kill_ him if he ever found out... but somehow that, too, became an insanely pleasurable concept to Kevin, which disturbed him so much that it kicked his sex drive down to low, low, below the ground levels.

Kevin knew he was messed up. He didn't really know how much, though, because so much of it was in his head, and who was there to judge what was in your head besides you? And you weren't exactly the greatest judge of yourself. No way could he talk to the Tennysons about it, they were why he had to be this way in the first place! And a shrink was right out. He didn't trust those overpaid nerds one little bit. There was no one to go to, nothing to do, except gamble for the stakes he was willing to risk day by day, and hope the coin kept landing on heads.

It was dark by the time he left, and Gwen walked out to his car with him, talking all the way. He thought to himself how funny all this was, how someone like him had ended up doing things like this. All this tame shit felt kinda unreal sometimes, but it _was_ real, just as real as the other stuff, the stuff Ben and Gwen didn't ever get to see. Or maybe they could see, if they really wanted to, but they closed their eyes. He couldn't blame them if they did. They were so happy the way they were with life, why mess things up by reevaluating crap? One thing that Kevin knew for sure was that happiness was hard to get.

When he got back to the hovel he currently called home, the puppy was still yapping. Furry little twat never seemed to need to breathe. Kevin drifted off to sleep dreaming of a dozen exotic ways of torturing it to death, a smirk in his lips.


End file.
